October 15, 2013

Are You Going to Your Stretching Class? [by Amanda Smeltz]

Last
year, I spent six months or so in San Francisco. There, my dude talked me into
trying yoga, which I’d badmouthed for a long time. I’m all, spare me your woo-woo shit. My great-grandpa was a coal miner. Etc.

But,
when in Rome. We started going to hatha classes with some very kind and articulate
instructors. I fell for it. What little I know of yoga practice is meditative
and expressive, challenging and rewarding. It’s difficult the way poetry is
difficult: you have to work at it a lot to find its fullest expression, but you
also shouldn’t “work” the joy right out of it. There’s paradox near the heart
of the practice, much the same as verse.

Despite
the fact that there is nothing more grating than a privileged-looking twat on
the L train bumping people with her yoga mat and Whole Foods grocery bag (i.e. me),
I do think there’s room to explore that old Western-made gap between mind and
body. When poetry becomes embodied in the vocal chords and mouth, I delight. I
feel satisfied and at home, the way I do when singing. And yoga leads into some
fascinating embodiments of mental activity, too.

Here
are two contemporary poets who I admire hanging out in a mind-body space with
yoga poems. I like that Simond’s poem below still lands on the skeptical side,
and I love where Ish Klein’s wild mind flies to when musing on Virabhadrasana
I, or the pose known as Warrior One, pictured at the top.

Yoga

Sandra
Simonds

From
2007-2009, I did a lot of yoga.

I was in graduate school and full of
hope.

I
believed in literature and love.

Well, maybe I was a bit cynical.

It’s hard to remember.

I
fell in love with someone

named Craig Wesley Freeman.

Recently,
he has told me things that

I can’t recall from the beginning

of
our courtship. “This car

smells like semen and wine,”

he
said I said back then.

He told me that we were both passed

out
at a Waffle House and when

we woke up in the red booth he couldn’t

remember
where I lived and I couldn’t either

so we drove around Tallahassee

for
four hours asking people where

Sandra Simonds lives and everyone

gave
us directions to a different

Waffle House, which is so inconvenient

and
shitty. When we finally got home,

I wanted to sit in the backyard alone

and
look at the pecan tree even though

it was five a.m. I remember staring

at a bright celestial body and
asking,

“Jesus H. Christ, is that the sun

or
the moon?” and for a split second

I was so freaked out it made me think

that
everyone in my life had died at once

and I was left alone and that the feeling

of
being abandoned was equivalent

to the feeling of emptiness that

would make me want to slit

the throat of a soft pig.

Yoga
was incredibly boring.

My mom called it “stretching.”

Over
the phone she would ask,

“Are you going to your

stretching
class?” How did

she
get so cynical? The women

who
taught yoga were mostly

beautiful and had Barbie-long arms,

legs,
plastic vaginas without holes, and wore

outfits with suns and moons on them.

They
made ordinary looking

women with soft folds

of
fat flesh around the abdomen

and neck feel bad about themselves so

what’s the deal anyway?

This too is a kind of cruelty.

They
always told us

about the charity yoga workshops

they
taught and “Couldn’t we spare

something, even a smile” to help them?

I
resent beautiful women who are flexible

and talk about Deepak Chopra

like they’re fucking him.

I resent other things too.

I
resent it when people tell me to

“be like the Buddha.”

Hey,
fuck you.

I’ll be like the Buddha if I want to.

*

Warrior One

Ish
Klein

No
center. I hold

every
action’s reaction and again:

consequences
beyond my neck.

One
life: to feel!

In
every way!

Enough!

The
warrior way to learn: men fight.

It
is a dance: deflect and/or rearrange

the
onslaught of force.

Childlike
I began:

first
I ran, then begged,

then
let death catch up my feebleness.

There
is no hiding.

When
you are killed

you
are absorbed by the killer.

A
part of the heart at least.

1970,
so long to my country. Its greenery, its song.

My
match knew it too, allowing an opening.

Buddha
is a beast and trained spirit

and
can access those willing.

A
strong man, a soldier is good to hide in

to
align with while reaching.

I think
therefore I am elsewhere.

Nearly
touching: to be everywhere.

Nothing
directly. Too explosive. Force, fear, love and self-

protection
determine my direction. I pray: do not put me

near
hate too long, it’s exhausting, let me be in love.

A
cut worm is not killed.

Each
side grows again.

The
plow is for working.

It
does not only displace:

it
doesn’t pave or willfully put worms on a black top

to
serve them to the sun. It teaches detachment.

It’s
run by someone, sometimes two beings run.

A
person and an ox

appreciate
that soil is sown by worms.

We
have each been through tubes:

in
earthworms

and
dead relatives too.

All
earth is an altar.

As
oceans will illustrate.

Have
you been in the waves?

Have
you panicked?

Undertow
taking you way out

and
the sun a hot mean hand on your head?

Waves
take; the sand wants to record.

Silicon!
A devilish element!

So
in ocean you are in and a solution.

One
wants

beyond
one form.

There
is more to record.

Sense
is interested. Not fashion, or before.

Essentially
we are each all our time.

We
are beautiful somewhere.

I
would like slow. Roll the plains

for
fun. I would like to be allowed to hang around

as
an avid apprentice to a master craftsman.

Part-time.
I am not the only.

I
have a boat I can row out,

I
have an inflatable raft for sleeping.

In
sleep I get back to my body.

It
used to hurt. A man steers the plow,

the
ox pulls.

A
girl/me met a man, fell under.

Get
up, get up, the adults say.

Mad,
I stayed down.

In
response am cut.

The
tongue, back, up,

leg,
back, tongue again, back, leg, back, neck.

Mister,
this is history.

You
must get over it. You too missy.

you
have to work to learn to fight to like to work

and
know with whom

this
earth churns—a star with and against whim.

Tides
take what will let them. Motion essence.

Why
do I think there is a gold castle that will have me?

In
the middle of the ocean?

Because
I can be anyone who loves me?

Castle
as of first house;

gold
as for protection.

Yoga is from Sandra Simonds’
book Mother Was a Tragic Girl, from
Cleveland State University Poetry Center in Cleveland, Ohio, 2012.

Warrior One is from Ish Klein’s book Moving Day, from Canarium Books in Ann
Arbor, Berkeley, Iowa City, 2011.

Comments

Are You Going to Your Stretching Class? [by Amanda Smeltz]

Last
year, I spent six months or so in San Francisco. There, my dude talked me into
trying yoga, which I’d badmouthed for a long time. I’m all, spare me your woo-woo shit. My great-grandpa was a coal miner. Etc.

But,
when in Rome. We started going to hatha classes with some very kind and articulate
instructors. I fell for it. What little I know of yoga practice is meditative
and expressive, challenging and rewarding. It’s difficult the way poetry is
difficult: you have to work at it a lot to find its fullest expression, but you
also shouldn’t “work” the joy right out of it. There’s paradox near the heart
of the practice, much the same as verse.

Despite
the fact that there is nothing more grating than a privileged-looking twat on
the L train bumping people with her yoga mat and Whole Foods grocery bag (i.e. me),
I do think there’s room to explore that old Western-made gap between mind and
body. When poetry becomes embodied in the vocal chords and mouth, I delight. I
feel satisfied and at home, the way I do when singing. And yoga leads into some
fascinating embodiments of mental activity, too.

Here
are two contemporary poets who I admire hanging out in a mind-body space with
yoga poems. I like that Simond’s poem below still lands on the skeptical side,
and I love where Ish Klein’s wild mind flies to when musing on Virabhadrasana
I, or the pose known as Warrior One, pictured at the top.

Yoga

Sandra
Simonds

From
2007-2009, I did a lot of yoga.

I was in graduate school and full of
hope.

I
believed in literature and love.

Well, maybe I was a bit cynical.

It’s hard to remember.

I
fell in love with someone

named Craig Wesley Freeman.

Recently,
he has told me things that

I can’t recall from the beginning

of
our courtship. “This car

smells like semen and wine,”

he
said I said back then.

He told me that we were both passed

out
at a Waffle House and when

we woke up in the red booth he couldn’t

remember
where I lived and I couldn’t either

so we drove around Tallahassee

for
four hours asking people where

Sandra Simonds lives and everyone

gave
us directions to a different

Waffle House, which is so inconvenient

and
shitty. When we finally got home,

I wanted to sit in the backyard alone

and
look at the pecan tree even though

it was five a.m. I remember staring

at a bright celestial body and
asking,

“Jesus H. Christ, is that the sun

or
the moon?” and for a split second

I was so freaked out it made me think

that
everyone in my life had died at once

and I was left alone and that the feeling

of
being abandoned was equivalent

to the feeling of emptiness that

would make me want to slit

the throat of a soft pig.

Yoga
was incredibly boring.

My mom called it “stretching.”

Over
the phone she would ask,

“Are you going to your

stretching
class?” How did

she
get so cynical? The women

who
taught yoga were mostly

beautiful and had Barbie-long arms,

legs,
plastic vaginas without holes, and wore

outfits with suns and moons on them.

They
made ordinary looking

women with soft folds

of
fat flesh around the abdomen

and neck feel bad about themselves so

what’s the deal anyway?

This too is a kind of cruelty.

They
always told us

about the charity yoga workshops

they
taught and “Couldn’t we spare

something, even a smile” to help them?

I
resent beautiful women who are flexible

and talk about Deepak Chopra

like they’re fucking him.

I resent other things too.

I
resent it when people tell me to

“be like the Buddha.”

Hey,
fuck you.

I’ll be like the Buddha if I want to.

*

Warrior One

Ish
Klein

No
center. I hold

every
action’s reaction and again:

consequences
beyond my neck.

One
life: to feel!

In
every way!

Enough!

The
warrior way to learn: men fight.

It
is a dance: deflect and/or rearrange

the
onslaught of force.

Childlike
I began:

first
I ran, then begged,

then
let death catch up my feebleness.

There
is no hiding.

When
you are killed

you
are absorbed by the killer.

A
part of the heart at least.

1970,
so long to my country. Its greenery, its song.

My
match knew it too, allowing an opening.

Buddha
is a beast and trained spirit

and
can access those willing.

A
strong man, a soldier is good to hide in

to
align with while reaching.

I think
therefore I am elsewhere.

Nearly
touching: to be everywhere.

Nothing
directly. Too explosive. Force, fear, love and self-

protection
determine my direction. I pray: do not put me

near
hate too long, it’s exhausting, let me be in love.

A
cut worm is not killed.

Each
side grows again.

The
plow is for working.

It
does not only displace:

it
doesn’t pave or willfully put worms on a black top

to
serve them to the sun. It teaches detachment.

It’s
run by someone, sometimes two beings run.

A
person and an ox

appreciate
that soil is sown by worms.

We
have each been through tubes:

in
earthworms

and
dead relatives too.

All
earth is an altar.

As
oceans will illustrate.

Have
you been in the waves?

Have
you panicked?

Undertow
taking you way out

and
the sun a hot mean hand on your head?

Waves
take; the sand wants to record.

Silicon!
A devilish element!

So
in ocean you are in and a solution.

One
wants

beyond
one form.

There
is more to record.

Sense
is interested. Not fashion, or before.

Essentially
we are each all our time.

We
are beautiful somewhere.

I
would like slow. Roll the plains

for
fun. I would like to be allowed to hang around

as
an avid apprentice to a master craftsman.

Part-time.
I am not the only.

I
have a boat I can row out,

I
have an inflatable raft for sleeping.

In
sleep I get back to my body.

It
used to hurt. A man steers the plow,

the
ox pulls.

A
girl/me met a man, fell under.

Get
up, get up, the adults say.

Mad,
I stayed down.

In
response am cut.

The
tongue, back, up,

leg,
back, tongue again, back, leg, back, neck.

Mister,
this is history.

You
must get over it. You too missy.

you
have to work to learn to fight to like to work

and
know with whom

this
earth churns—a star with and against whim.

Tides
take what will let them. Motion essence.

Why
do I think there is a gold castle that will have me?

In
the middle of the ocean?

Because
I can be anyone who loves me?

Castle
as of first house;

gold
as for protection.

Yoga is from Sandra Simonds’
book Mother Was a Tragic Girl, from
Cleveland State University Poetry Center in Cleveland, Ohio, 2012.

Warrior One is from Ish Klein’s book Moving Day, from Canarium Books in Ann
Arbor, Berkeley, Iowa City, 2011.